CircleID

Will the Trademark Clearinghouse Fulfill its Potential?

ICANN created the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) as a way to streamline the repetitive process forced on trademark owners during the launch of new top-level-domains. With the expected tsunami of hundreds of new TLD's starting later this year, the TMCH should generate a clear benefit for trademark owners who elect to participate in Sunrise and Claims Periods. The side effect of introducing new TLDs is that the legacy TLDs will be making changes to make sure they are competitive against the new TLDs. more»

ICANN's Trademark Clearinghouse Launches March 26. But There Is Time Before the First Sunrise.

ICANN has announced that the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) will "launch" on March 26. Brand Owners: Brace yourself. Soon every trademark law firm and corporate registrar will be screaming at you: The Trademark Clearinghouse Is Here; You Need to Be Ready to Submit on March 26; Do You Have Your Act Together Yet? Here are some tips for brand owners to consider about ICANN's Trademark Clearinghouse. more»

How the Registrar Cash Flow Model Could Collapse with New ICANN gTLDs

New top-level domain applicants are getting plenty of advice nowadays about how to launch their new Registry. In addition to thinking about their branding and distribution, they should also be thinking about their business practices with Registrars. What many of them do not realize is that their cash flow practices, with respect to Registrars, may be a factor of whether ICANN Registrars even support their Registry. more»

Is It Time for Social Networks to Adopt Some Trademark Protection?

The headlines this week say that over 200 million domain names now exist on the internet. Pretty impressive... But consider the explosive growth of Social Networks. The top twenty social networks alone have over 2 billion user names. With User Names on social networks rapidly becoming the Internet's new brand identifiers, I wonder: is it time that we apply the same trademark rules we have for domain names to user names as well? more»

Could .NAME be the Killer App ENUM is Waiting For?

I'm in the camp that ICANN Top-Level Domains (TLDs) are businesses that should be allowed to evolve from their original charter to increase their viability in the marketplace. It was announced today that VeriSign is proposing to allow telephone numbers and other numeric identifiers in the .NAME top-level domain. This could be the Killer App that ENUM has been waiting for. more»

What If .COM Had Been Born With Site Finder?

ICANN's new Registry Service Technical Evaluation Service (RSTEP) process is definitely a positive step forward for ICANN. The comment period for the Tralliance proposed new service using the DNS wildcard feature closed Wednesday night. ...Ken Fockler commented "there are no right answers and no wrong answers, just judgments and decisions made on those judgments." In this light, I would be interested in hearing different perspectives on the following questions... more»

Spirit of .Pro, Where Art Thou?

On March 2, EnCirca launched its ProForwarding leasing service for .pro domains. When we launched the service, we were sure that the ProForwarding service would appeal to a segment of the internet community not being served well by other extensions: self-employed professionals and other small businesses. Based on the response we've received, it appears we were right. It also caught the attention of ICANN and others, who accused us of "violating the spirit of .pro". Does .pro even have a spirit? And if it does, who gets to decide what it is? more»